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Balboa Reservoir

The Balboa Reservoir developer selection process has concluded with the selection of AvalonBay Communities and BRIDGE Housing with Mission Housing, Pacific Union Development Company, and Habitat for Humanity of Greater San Francisco. You can view their proposal here.

The selected team and the City is hosting more detailed design workshops for community discussion of the proposal in 2017 and 2018.

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To combat the challenge of unaffordable housing in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee has directed City agencies to identify sites they own that are underused and could be used for housing. In response, multiple agencies have identified potential sites and the City is beginning to plan for their use.

The City's goals are to develop these public resources through community engagement; to deliver benefits to the public by using these sites; and to fulfill the public mission of the City agencies that own the sites.

Background

In late 2014, the Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Planning Department and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission initiated a study of the western portion of the Balboa Reservoir site (aka Balboa Public Site), located off of Ocean and Phelan Avenues in Balboa Park. It is the first site to be considered under San Francisco's Public Land for Housing Program, which seeks to address the City's most pressing issues around affordable housing, while allowing the public agencies that own these sites to fulfill their missions to the citizens of San Francisco. In the case of the Balboa Public Site, the owner is the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Download the initial study's existing planning conditions report here and existing transportation conditions report here.

The Balboa Park Station Area Plan (Adopted 2009) provides the building blocks for development of the reservoir. The Plan includes policies designed to increase affordable housing for a variety of incomes; create open space; knit together isolated areas of the neighborhood; integrate diverse land uses with the area's commercial and transit corridors; design streets for walking, biking and public transit; and otherwise strengthen the Balboa Park area. Now, through a public process, San Francisco can take steps to utilize the 17-acre SFPUC property to achieve many of these objectives.

The Balboa project is coordinated with several concurrent planning and construction projects in the Balboa Park Station Area, including the City College of San Francisco's master plan process. City of San Francisco projects include:

Balboa Reservoir CAC & Public Participation

Public discussion of the Balboa Reservoir project will be carried forward by the City, the development team and the Balboa Reservoir Community Advisory Committee (CAC). The CAC advised City staff on the development "principles and parameters" in the request for qualifications (RFQ) and request for proposals (RFP) documents used to solicit a developer partner.

Three finalists were selected to submit development proposals for the Balboa Reservoir development project. These proposals were submitted in early June of 2017 and were publicly presented and discussed on Saturday, June 10, 2017 (live presentation) and at a Balboa Reservoir Community Advisory Committee meeting on Thursday, June 15 (video viewing). For those who were unable to attend these meetings, information about the proposals and a video of the presentations are posted at http://sfwater.org/balboa/community.

CAC meetings and future community design workshops in 2017 and 2018 will continue to provide an opportunity for the community advisors and the public to engage in deeper, detailed discussions about specific aspects of the project.

Members of the public are not required to provide personal identifying information when they communicate with the Commission or Department. All written or oral communications, including submitted personal contact information, may be made available to the public for inspection and copying upon request and may appear on the Department's website or in other public documents.